Madame Bovary

Madame Bovary is a novel by Gustave Flaubert, who was attacked
for obscenity by public prosecutors when it was first serialized in La Revue
de Paris between October 1, 1856 and December 15, 1856, resulting in a trial
in January 1857 that made the story notorious. After the acquittal on February
7, 1857, it became a bestseller in book form in April 1857, and now stands
virtually unchallenged not only as a seminal work of Realism, but as one of the
most influential novels ever written.

The novel focuses on a doctor's wife, Emma Bovary, who has adulterous affairs
and lives beyond her means in order to escape the banalities and emptiness of
provincial life. Though the basic plot is rather simple, even archetypal, the
novel's true art lies in its details and hidden patterns. Flaubert was
notoriously perfectionistic about his writing and claimed to always be searching
for le mot juste (the right word).

— Excerpted from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.